For Rail Safety Week, Young Transport Professionals collaborated with Metro Trains Melbourne to present a two-part series on Managing Railway Network Disruptions with Metro Control Centre (Metrol). This event was inspired by the Rail Safety Week agenda of encouraging everyone to be aware and alert on and around the rail network.
This event series was facilitated by Gary Wegert, Kuldip Johal, Claudia Gemes, Travis Fitzpatrick, Lindsay Underwood, Conor Beddoe and a special appearance from Catherine Baxter for the lunch and learn event.
Part one, the lunch and learn event provided a unique opportunity for attendees to learn about the interconnections of Metrol to the rest of the railway network and emergency services to support any type of disruption across the metropolitan railway network. The facilitators highlighted the skills required to be part of Metrol and the various tools available to support any railway incident situations. The event provided a Q&A segment to allow the attendees to engage with the facilitators and query their experience and get clarification on the complex nature of Metrol.
Part two, the interactive workshop event provided an opportunity for the attendees to ‘firefight’ a network disruption as “Senior Network Controllers” of Metrol. The facilitators provided network diagrams and prompts to the groups to assist them with thinking about all the different aspects of the railway disruption, how to utilise Metrol staff, emergency services and tools available to them to resolve the disruption and most importantly ensure that passenger safety was the highest priority.
The evening concluded with professional networking, where the attendees and facilitators continued the discussion and connected with like-minded young professionals outside their organisation.
Young Transport Professionals would like to thank our Industry Partners, Subject Matter Experts, Venues and participants for making this an informative and fun event.